Opie And Anthony And Double Standards.

There’s a number of sub-plots involved with this post. (read it, and come back)

Full disclosure time: I’m an XM subscriber, but I don’t listen to O&A, and have never cared for that kind of radio, be it Stern, Imus, whoever. Further, I speak as one who has spent a few years on the other side of the mike, which is a perspective that only a paltry few will ever be able to speak from.  That kind of a radio is against every single one of my instincts as a broadcaster.  Every one.

I understand the reasoning behind Dale’s position.  Indeed; it’s precisely because of that understanding that I stoutly disagree with it.

The issue that Boortz raises is, I think, a valid one, though I can understand why some people would consider it to be a stretch, including, apparently, Dale. You see, I worked in radio during the arguments over the ‘fairness doctrine’, and I for one am glad to see it gone. It was most certainly NOT fair, nor was it free speech.

The issue here, to my mind, at least, is not whether not such comments can be made by the hosts.  They can. Clearly, XM is a subscription service, and they can do any damn thing they want to. At least, for the moment.

And therein…’At the moment”… lies the problem. We are not looking far enough down the road.  Trust me, my friends, if there is a way to be found to extend an FCC control , and thereby congressional control, to satellite broadcasts it will happen when the Democrats are in power, as they are now.

I will point out to you that the fairness doctrine was a logical conclusion of the EM spectrum being “public property” , which in turn was a product of FDR’s socialism. Remember, that concept was offered as a law in 1932, as a part of the communications act of that year. as to how that situation might be extended to satellite broadcasts, I would suggest to you that such a power grab might well be accomplished with the argument that regardless of what else satellite broadcasts are, they still utilize the EM spectrum goal in a somewhat different fashion; getting the signal from the ground to the bird and back to the receiver, and that thereby they still are under federal control. I would also ask you to consider the amount of control that the Congress, by way of the FCC already holds over other ostensibly private networks, such as cable television.  And those use the electromagnetic spectrum not all.

Boortz suggests:

There is nothing magical about paid TV or radio that prevents politicians from stepping in and seizing control of content. When the law is finally passed that gives the FCC the power to regulate what the political class deems to be “offensive content” on cable television and satellite radio, you “but it’s a subscription service and you can block it” can go tell your story to a federal judge somewhere. Good luck.

So far is all that goes, I think Boortz has a legit point.  Where I think he misses the boat, however, is with his idea that this O&A thing is the tool that will allow them to so extend that control.  I don’t think so.

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The issue here is the target. Were such comments directed at Hillary Clinton, you know what the congressional reaction would be, don’t you, really?  As it is, I don’t see Democrats being all that concerned about verbal attacks on Condi Rice or Laura Bush, or any other Republican, for that matter.

On the other side of the coin, I don’t see anybody going after Al Sharpton for his remarks of the last several days.  I don’t see anybody going after Jesse Jackson for his comments , either.  Perhaps you can tell me again, why Imus got all that outrage, again? and, while you’re at it, and perhaps you can explain Sharpton’s silence on this particular issue.  Clearly, the issue is not what is said, but the targets of those comments. Mark this well; when a leftist is so targeted, that is when we will see maximum efforts to establish congressional control of satellite broadcasts.
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If anything, this situation is best considered an object lesson in double standards for whom it is that gets protected by the outrage of the leftists running Congress, and who does not, even though they’re in the same minority.

As Boortz himself says, as an afterthought:

Let’s sit back and see if race pimps Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have anything to say about this. I fact, let’s see if CNN spends an entire day dwelling on this as they did on the Imus matter.

Exactly so.

As for first amendment rights, and freedom of speech, as a direct connection to Opie and Anthony, in this case, at what point did Boortz suggest that government intervention was required for this situation?  Indeed, that’s the very problem that he is addressing, is government intervention.  Freedom of speech, is exactly that; freedom of speech.  It’s not a guarantee of an audience.  Which, I should note, is precisely the argument that I used, during the demise of the so called “fairness doctrine”.  What Neal’s arguing for is people to react, not government.

That seems very libertarian to me, some of the comments that I’ve seen to the contrary, notwithstanding.

Finally, I see where the duo has issued an apology.  For whatever good that will do.